Just had this release drop into my Inbox (it has the word "cycle" in it ) - I'm guessing the motorcyclists were ticketed in the North Canterbury Plains before the Hunderlees? Or would it be possible to break 200kph on the Kaikoura coastal road?

http://www.police.govt.nz/news/release.html?id=5021 wrote:Police have caught two motorcyclists who reached 211 km/h on their way 'to Kaikoura for a coffee', during an operation targeting high-risk behaviour on South Island's stretch of State Highway One. The riders had their licences suspended immediately for 28 days, and will appear in later in court.

"Motorcyclists are some of the most vulnerable road users in New Zealand and are over-represented in crash statistics," says Acting Canterbury Road Policing Manager Neville Hyland. "This type of behaviour is one of the reasons why. There are plenty of clubs with access to race tracks if you want to travel at these speeds. Otherwise, stick to the rules or be prepared for the consequences."

Police issued 448 tickets for the operation over the first week of April, adding to the 355 issued during the same operation in early March.

The work focused on high-risk behaviour — including speed, cutting corners, overtaking on no-passing lines and failing to wear seat belts — but also encompassed driver licences, following distances and commercial vehicles.

The 286 speeding tickets issued included 11 tickets for speeding in the vicinity of a school, one for exceeding 20 km/h passing a school bus, 126 for exceeding 100 km/h, and 21 for heavy vehicles exceeding 90 km/h.

Eighty tickets were issued for crossing the centre line, which included cutting corners and crossing over no-passing lanes. Twenty four tickets covered offences where drivers didn't comply with traffic lights, stop signs or direction arrows. Twenty nine tickets were issued to heavy or commercial vehicles, including overloading, avoiding Road User Charges, and logbook and dangerous goods offences. Nine drivers received notices for breaching their driver licence conditions, 20 were caught not wearing a seat belt, and three drivers were following too close to the vehicle in front.

Drivers were routinely screened for alcohol when stopped, with four people processed for excess breath alcohol. The worst offender recorded 1,087 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, or 2.7 times the legal limit.

The work was part of a wider five-month operation to improve safety along the main highway from Picton to Bluff. Ending on the 30th of June, Operation Tahi will cycle through phases targeting alcohol, speed, high-risk and dangerous driving, seat belts, and commercial and heavy vehicles.

people wet themselves over cars that will do 0-100k in 3.2 seconds (faaast cars:Porsches and Zondas and Ferraris and whatnot). Even an average bike is quicker than that, and significantly quicker 0-200 (or 0-200-0) ultimate top speed is let down by a bikes shitty aerodynamics, but current litre bikes (`160 - 170 bhp) are not slow. 240 -260k actual top speed?

The surprising thing to me is that the bikers stopped..... at that velocity you'd almost be tempted not to (I'd imagine)

Most current litre bikes are electronically restricted to 183 MPH as per the Japanese "gentlemans agreement" that the big four manufacturers came to after the release of the 1st generation (197 MPH) Suzuki Hayabusa, which caused a bit of "negative publicity" in some political circles (eg: the UK and Europe went mental and were talking 100 and 150 BHP blanket limits for bikes in general, which is why the big 4 came with their informal agreement). Circa 1999 /2000.

In saying that, with most of them, the restrictions are rather simplistic and I haven't come across a bike yet that can't be "derestricted" and opened up to its full potential if you know what to do or have some money to throw at it (eg: swapping out restricted ECUs, pipes, headers and piggy-backing ECU plugin devices like Dynojet Power Commander's etc). The first generation Kawasaki ZX10's are putting out around 175 BHp at the rear wheel, so that's around 190'ish at the crank - they can easily top 200 BHP with very, very simple mod's.200 KPH on a short straight - easy on 4 strokes over about 400 cc's or a good small capacity 2 stroke.

Henry Dorset Case wrote:The surprising thing to me is that the bikers stopped..... at that velocity you'd almost be tempted not to (I'd imagine)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2340007 ... ing-coffeePerhaps it was some sort of roadblock situation with a dude down the road some ways clocking speeds and then a whole shitload of cops further up the road stopping people? Hard to get away from that, and even if you did they might still get your number plate.

A friend of mine did 280kph on his Honda Blackbird 1100. In our motorbike club we had/have an annual ride down to Murapara where there is a long straight forestry road with only about 2 crossroads. One or two riders go ahead and phone back re no cops (as far as they know) and the guys who are game enough give it full tit along the road. I've never been on that run but most people went at some stage - whether to ride full throttle or not.

My top speed has only been 190kph on the Hauraki plains. My thing was to attempt to double the posted speeds on corners. Corners are where the fun is in road motorcycling.

Tama wrote:Just had this release drop into my Inbox (it has the word "cycle" in it ) - I'm guessing the motorcyclists were ticketed in the North Canterbury Plains before the Hunderlees? Or would it be possible to break 200kph on the Kaikoura coastal road?

Standard 2006 Kawasaki ZX-14 gets to 200kph in 6.8 sec, so not much road required!After 3 years I suspect bikes have only got quicker since then Pure sports bikes (with shorter wheelbases) have traditionally been fractionally slower accelerating than powerhouses like the ZX-14, however improvements like drive mapping and traction control close the gap.All this performance for $15k (second hand)

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:A friend of mine did 280kph on his Honda Blackbird 1100. In our motorbike club we had/have an annual ride down to Murapara where there is a long straight forestry road with only about 2 crossroads. One or two riders go ahead and phone back re no cops (as far as they know) and the guys who are game enough give it full tit along the road. I've never been on that run but most people went at some stage - whether to ride full throttle or not.

My top speed has only been 190kph on the Hauraki plains. My thing was to attempt to double the posted speeds on corners. Corners are where the fun is in road motorcycling.

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:A friend of mine did 280kph on his Honda Blackbird 1100. In our motorbike club we had/have an annual ride down to Murapara where there is a long straight forestry road with only about 2 crossroads. One or two riders go ahead and phone back re no cops (as far as they know) and the guys who are game enough give it full tit along the road. I've never been on that run but most people went at some stage - whether to ride full throttle or not.

My top speed has only been 190kph on the Hauraki plains. My thing was to attempt to double the posted speeds on corners. Corners are where the fun is in road motorcycling.

Wow, never picked you as such a reckless law breaker.

Neither did I. That is why I only have one motorbike now (in a hundred pieces - its on the 15 year restoration plan) - a classic '82 Yamaha SR500 single roadbike. Factory HP is like 35 so even hotting up the engine it can't get me into too much trouble.

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:A friend of mine did 280kph on his Honda Blackbird 1100. In our motorbike club we had/have an annual ride down to Murapara where there is a long straight forestry road with only about 2 crossroads. One or two riders go ahead and phone back re no cops (as far as they know) and the guys who are game enough give it full tit along the road. I've never been on that run but most people went at some stage - whether to ride full throttle or not.

My top speed has only been 190kph on the Hauraki plains. My thing was to attempt to double the posted speeds on corners. Corners are where the fun is in road motorcycling.

Wow, never picked you as such a reckless law breaker.

Neither did I. That is why I only have one motorbike now (in a hundred pieces - its on the 15 year restoration plan) - a classic '82 Yamaha SR500 single roadbike. Factory HP is like 35 so even hotting up the engine it can't get me into too much trouble.

You don't need anything too flash to achieve insane speeds on a bike. My last bike was a 1986 Honda CBX750F which I paid $1500 for about 3 years ago. So we're talking a 20 year old bike here and when I got it, she was a tad tired and a bit gutless, but after a good service....well, I hit 240 a few times on it. It didn't need much road (track) to do it on either!!!!

I realised that I have not lost my 'need for speed' which was one of the reasons for selling it.

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:A friend of mine did 280kph on his Honda Blackbird 1100. In our motorbike club we had/have an annual ride down to Murapara where there is a long straight forestry road with only about 2 crossroads. One or two riders go ahead and phone back re no cops (as far as they know) and the guys who are game enough give it full tit along the road. I've never been on that run but most people went at some stage - whether to ride full throttle or not.

My top speed has only been 190kph on the Hauraki plains. My thing was to attempt to double the posted speeds on corners. Corners are where the fun is in road motorcycling.

Wow, never picked you as such a reckless law breaker.

Neither did I. That is why I only have one motorbike now (in a hundred pieces - its on the 15 year restoration plan) - a classic '82 Yamaha SR500 single roadbike. Factory HP is like 35 so even hotting up the engine it can't get me into too much trouble.